Interpretive Plan, Official Manilatown App
Implementation (Action Plan)
Theme: Community Organization and Outreach
This Interpretive plan incorporates the Team project theme of community organization and outreach via a mobile app. This format was chosen primarily to serve as a of encouraging the younger generation to be informed, involved, and further interested in the history behind the International Hotel and the Manilatown heritage Foundation with easy accessibility.
-The app also includes a feature that allows users to directly engage with displays by accessing audio testimonies and narratives to photographs by location based technology.
-The platform paves a pathway for the exchange of information that was not possible without the collective effort of the users of the app.
-The application permits visitors the chance to connect with other visitors as they post and share their stories thereby creating an online community that is specific to the International Hotel. -The app contributes to the International Hotel’s efforts to engage with the community in creative ways while emphasizing the importance of community. The Manilatown Heritage Center is the physical reminder of the Filipino-American community created by and for the community. The Manilatown Heritage Foundation app is an online extension of the continuous effort to preserve and promote the presence of the community for the community.
Short-term plan (5 years):
The short-term implementation plan of the Official Manilatown Heritage Foundation app involves broadening the user base of the app. The plan is to initially target tech savvy groups such as high school and college students in order to develop their interest in the International-Hotel and its tumulus past with renter’s rights. The app also caters to those individuals who are unable to physically visit the location through its gallery feature, which allows access to the archive database of countless photographs and other media. Through this plan the Manilatown Heritage Foundation can hope to see a new wave of visitors, online and offline, who are interested in the further preservation and conservation of the I-Hotel.
Long term-plan (25 years):
The long-term implementation plan of the Official Manilatown Heritage App is to eventually turn a portion of the users of the application into future stewards of I-Hotel. Due to the changing demographic of San Francisco, I-Hotel is faced with the issue of catering to a community that is no longer largely present in that location. The Official Manilatown app aims to start a movement to bring people back to the battleground of renter’s rights and highlight the significant role the I-Hotel played in them. The reestablishment of the Manilatown community requires a new generation of people who are willing to rally around the I-Hotel and further promote its presence. Moreover, the app’s long-term goal is to bring the I-Hotel to the attention of additional visitors and potential stakeholders who otherwise would have not have access to information of and provided by the International hotel.
Berkeley Beats Poetry: Background
1624 Milvia Street/ Ginsberg 1955-56 Residence
The apartment complex on Milvia Street that replaced Allen Ginsberg’s cottage.
Allen Ginsberg occupied the residence of 1624 Milvia Street in Berkeley, California from September 1955 until August 1956. The site became his inspiration for the poem “A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley.” In 1964, Ginsberg’s former cottage was demolished and replaced with a 6-unit apartment complex that still stands today.[1] On the opposing side of the street there is the Berkeley Arts Magnet School, which has a Poetry Garden and plaque commemorating Allen Ginsberg’s time in Berkeley. The site is currently privately owned and rented out as a place of residence. There are no visitors to this site as there is no physical indication of its cultural and historical significance at the site.
Here is a tour of Milvia Street.
Here is a tour of the Poetry Garden.
1885 University Avenue/ U-Save Market
What the U-Save Market looks like today.
Ginsberg wrote his famous poem “A Supermarket in California” while roaming the U-Save Market on the corner of University Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way (1885 University Avenue) in Berkeley. The single-story U-Save Market building was replaced by Kragen Outlet and finally rebuilt in 2006 by Trader Joe’s Grocery Store.[2] The current building is 43,750 square feet in size and houses the grocery store and apartment units in a 5-story building. [3] The supermarket is publicly accessible as a commercial business and the management of the site is by Trader Joe’s corporation. There are no remnants of the U-Save Market, nor are there any interpretive elements or historical markers for the site.
A Trader Joe’s customer reads “A Supermarket in California” at the grocery store.
2797 Shattuck Avenue/Berkeley Town Hall Theater
The old Town Hall Theater building today.
At the time of Allen Ginsberg’s residence in Berkeley, this site served as the Berkeley Town Hall Theater from 1956 to 1958. Ginsberg performed the first recorded reading of his most famous poem, “Howl,” here. While the building itself remains, it has been repurposed several times and has no remaining indication of its time as the Town Hall Theater. The site is now used as a Japanese restaurant called Kirala and a café and bakery named Sconehenge Café. There are ongoing plans to turn this site into a Honda showroom. For now, however, the preservation and management of this site belongs to the current business owners.
A student reads “Howl” at Sconehenge Cafe.
1111 Eighth Street/San Francisco Greyhound Station
The Greyhound Station in its current condition.
Two more of Allen Ginsberg’s poems, “Sunflower Sutra” and “In the Baggage Room at Greyhound”, were written at 1111 Eighth Street in San Francisco. This site served as a Greyhound bus station from the time it was built in 1951 until it closed around 1995. The California College of the Arts bought the building in 1996. While the College retained the industrial aesthetic of the bus station, there is no indication of the site’s relevance to Ginsberg or the Beat Generation. The site is currently used by California College of the Arts students and faculty, and there is no popular tourism or community visitation at this location.
Read about our Stakeholders and Stewards
[1] “Berkeley Home.” 1624 Milvia St APT 2 94709. Zillow, n. d. Web. 11 Oct 2015.
[2] Jones, Carolyn. “BERKELEY / Neighbors Say No to Popular Market / Trader Joe’s Project Hits Snag Over Traffic, Low-priced Alcohol.” SFGate. Hearst Communications, Inc., 3 Oct 2006. Web. 11 Oct. 2015.
[3] “1885 University Avenue Initial Study and Environmental Checklist.” (2006): Planning and Development Department Land Use Planning Division. City of Berkeley, June 2006. Web. 11 Oct. 2015.
History
The original International Hotel building was built after the San Francisco Earth Quake. It became popular with Filipino laborers and quickly became the epicenter of historic Manilatown. For thousands of newly arrived migrants from the Philippines International Hotel played a major role in the socialization and upward mobility of many Filipino people.
The original International Hotel building was built after the San Francisco Earthquake in 1907.
However, in 1968, Milton Meyer purchased International Hotel and made plans to redevelop the property. That October, tenants were served an order to evacuate the property by January 1, 1979.
The following year a fire destroyed the third floor of International Hotel resulting in three deaths. It is still unclear how the fire started. The damage notwithstanding, in the summer and fall months of 1969 volunteers organized to rebuild the damaged floor. This raised the spirit of activism among many people who were linked to International Hotel. As such, the following spring of 1970 a community center and a book store were established in the first floor storefronts of International Hotel. Two years later, the tenets of International Hotel organized and founded the International Hotel Tenants Association, so they could better organize to fight evictions
Less than one year later the For Seas Investment Company purchased International Hotel from Milton Meyer and the company orders tenants to vacate the property the following year in 1974. For three years the International Hotel Tenants Association led a grassroots effort to stop the evictions. This effort gained a high profile that in 1976 then Mayor of San Francisco George Moscone proposes that eminent domain be used to keep International Hotel out of the private real estate market. This sparked a major grassroots effort to take the International Hotel public. The community mobilized its efforts to stop evictions. Local Bay Area universities such as UC-Berkeley and San Francisco State University organized student protests and demonstrates against eviction. However, the eviction order was sent, but the local Sheriff refused to serve the eviction. Furthermore, the San Francisco court rejects the appeal for eminent domain exhausting the last legal effort to stop evictions. Finally, on August 4, 1977 more than ten years after the first eviction order was served tenets of International Hotel were forcefully evicted from the property.
Local university students joined with International Hotel residents and local activists to prevent evictions.
Although tenants eventually lost the fight to keep their homes, ten years of struggle developed advocacy skills and training for many people. This struggle served as a launching point for many prominent Bay Area activists. In fact, San Francisco’s current Mayor Ed Lee participated in the fight to stop evictions. Yet the amazing grassroots effort to save the residents’ homes was not enough and the International Hotel was demolished shortly after the last person moved out. But this demolition lead to more activism and prompts then Mayor Dianne Feinstein to establish the International Hotel Block Development Citizens Advisory Committee in 1979. This lead to financial investments and zoning ordinances that blocked the Four Seas Investment Corporation from moving forward to development plans. For ten years the Four Seas Investment Corporation negotiated with the International Hotel Block Development Citizens Advisory Committee, but eventually the Four Seas had to withdraw citing financial infeasibility.
During the 1990’s the International Hotel Block Development Citizens Advisory Committee collaborated with St. Mary’s Chinese Schools and Catholic Schools and Chinatown Community Development Center to develop a new International Hotel building. In 1994 the United States Housing and Urban Development Department grants 8.3 million dollars to help the Chinatown Community Development Center and the International Hotel Block Development Citizens Advisory Committee to develop a new senior citizen residential complex. In the 1990s the Manilatown Heritage Foundation was established in an effort to track down former residents and construct a narrative of International Hotel. Furthermore, in 1998 the Four Seas Investment Corporations sells the property to the San Francisco Archdiocese which paved the way for construction of a new residential complex to be name International Hotel. So between the years of 1998 and 2005 the Chinatown Community Development Corporation develops a new International Hotel building. The new building consists of 104 units of senior housing and a community space for the Manilatown Heritage Foundation. On August 26, 2005 the new International Hotel and International Hotel Manilatown Center opens to the public.
The new International Hotel building opened in 2005.
Berkeley Beats Poetry: Stewards and Stakeholders
Stewards
The stewards for these four sites include cultural archaeologists, cultural heritage workers, conservation and archival programs, literary programs, and libraries. Site-specific stewards include those who own each of the sites.
In relation to Ginsberg and the Beat Generation, there are also a number of other non-site specific stewards involved in preserving the poets’ heritage. This includes Bob Rosenthal who was a long-time confidant and manager of Ginsberg and is currently the head of the Allen Ginsberg Trust and a part of “Ginsberg’s Estate”. A second is Andrew Wylie who owns the Wylie Agency which handles copyright legal issues and lists Allen Ginsberg as their client. Another person listed as a part of “Ginsberg’s Estate” is Peter Hale, who was also a noted assistant and confidant of Allen Ginsberg.[1] Other stewards include major film companies who have made films based on the narrative of Ginsberg’s life, for example Howl (2010) and Kill Your Darlings (2013), as well as the book publishing houses that have the rights to continue distributing his works.
Interest Groups and Stakeholders
Interest groups include people who own and use each of the four sites, those who celebrate the work of Ginsberg such as teachers and students, those in the literary world, and the local Berkeley and Bay area community.
In addition to the groups listed above, there are also site specific stakeholders. For Ginsberg’s former house on Milvia Street, stakeholders include current homeowners and residents of the building, those who live on or around Milvia Street, the homeowners association, and whoever owns the land (city, state, etc). Stakeholders for Trader Joe’s are those who shop at the grocery store, the homeowners who live in the direct vicinity of the store, the workers and managers of Trader Joe’s, and those who have invested in the store’s success. At the old Town Hall Theater, the stakeholders are people who own or work in Sconehenge Cafe, frequently go to the Café, or live around this location. Competing nearby coffee shops could also be considered stakeholders. Another stakeholder could be the Honda Motor Company who wishes to buy and occupy the building. Possible stakeholders for the old Greyhound Station include the city of San Francisco, students, faculty, staff, and donors of California College of the Arts, those who have used or worked at the Greyhound bus station, and those who have relations to the Greyhound Company.
In order to pursue our interpretive plan and re-contextualize Ginsberg’s poems into these sites, we would need to receive approval from the stewards and owners of these four sites and the Allen Ginsberg Trust. We wish to collaborate with the site owners to install the text of Ginsberg’s poems into their establishments and establish exhibits or poetry nights at these locations. We hope to appeal to stakeholders like the local and literary communities to popularize these sites as historic locations and encourage them to use our interpretive plans.
Read about our Appraisal
[1] “Allen Ginsberg Project.” AllenGinsberg.org. Allen Ginsberg Project, 2014. Web. 10 Oct 2015.
History of Alcatraz Island
Alcatraz Island is located in the San Francisco Bay, only 1.5 miles from the shore of San Francisco, California. It now contains structural remnants of a prison in disuse, early military fortifications, and the oldest operating lighthouse on the West Coast of the United States. While the island is thought to have been first inhabited by the Ohlone Native American tribe, the earliest recorded discovery of the island was by Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala in 1775. Juan Manuel de Ayala christened the island “La Isla de los Alcatraces”, or the Island of the Pelicans, due to the island’s large population of seabirds.
Military Era
In 1850, U.S. President Millard Fillmore claimed the island for military use, leading to the eventual construction of a fortress. In 1861, when the American Civil War started, the island was mounted with 85 cannons in casemates in order to protect the San Francisco Bay from potential attacks. Although the guns on Alcatraz were never fired for offensive reasons, Confederate sympathizers and privateers during the Civil War were imprisoned on the island during wartime.
Prison Era
In October 1933, the Bureau of Prisons was given the responsibility of turning Alcatraz from a military prison to a high security federal prison, marking the beginning 5 of the era for which Alcatraz is most well known. In 1934, Alcatraz opened and became America’s first maximum-security, minimum-privilege federal penitentiary. Alcatraz gained worldwide notoriety due to its isolated location and reputation as home to America’s most notorious criminals, such as Robert Stroud and Al Capone. Several highly-publicized escape attempts were made by prisoners despite the prison’s supposedly inescapable fortifications; to this day, Alcatraz escape attempts continue to be the subject of great speculation. In 1963, after nearly thirty years of use, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered the prison to be closed, citing its high maintenance costs and quickly eroding structure as reasons to discontinue use.
Indians of All Tribes Occupation
In March of 1963, the prison officially closed, ending the island’s chapter as an infamous federal penitentiary. Six years after Alcatraz’s prison was closed, Richard Oakes led a group of approximately eighty Native American activists from various tribes, who named themselves the Indians of All Tribes, in occupying the island for nineteen months, starting on November 20, 1969. The Indians of All Tribes wanted to draw attention to the injustices directed at Native Americans throughout American history, specifically protesting government policies that acted to terminate Native American tribes. In order to draw attention to their cause, the Indians of All Tribes painted graffiti slogans on prison walls, prison doors, and the water tower—some of which were restored for visitors to view today, such as the water tower, pictured below. The federal government initially rejected the Indians of All Tribes’ occupation of Alcatraz, and attempted to force the group to vacate the premises by placing barricades around the island. These barricades proved ineffective, but authorities continued to insist upon the group’s departure from the island. Over the nineteen-month occupation, the Indians of All Tribes struggled to remain a cohesive organization, as members within the group struggled for power over one another.
By 1971, President Nixon and his administration became fed up with the Indians of All Tribes’ movement, and began developing a more active removal plan to end the occupation. On June 10, 1971, federal marshals and FBI agents stormed the island and removed the Indians of All Tribes from Alcatraz, ending the occupation. While the U.S. government failed to meet the specific demands of the Indians of All Tribes during the island’s occupation, the official government policy of terminating American Indian tribes eventually changed, and now a policy of Indian self-determination is in place.
Berkeley Beats Poetry: Appraisal
The four sites of the Berkeley Beat History Project are important because of their potential to preserve and display the intangible heritage related to the Beat Movement of the 1950’s. This counterculture rebellion went against American militarism, materialism, conformity, and racism, all of which had become normal with the rise of McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare. Instead, Beatniks advocated spontaneity, free expression, love, authenticity, the choice to use drugs, and the right to be different.[1] They also influenced the hippies, the Free Speech Movement, and other poets, musicians, artists, and writers to express themselves through their art.[2] Because of this, and the fact that Allen Ginsberg’s most influential poems were either written at these sites, preformed at these sites, or refer specifically to these sites, we believe that they should all be recontextualized and protected.
Ultimately, this recontextualization will provide people with a deeper understanding of Ginsberg’s poems by re-situating them within a physical location. In this way, we can use these sites to display the heritage of the Beat Generation and remind the local community about its history. This will add cultural value and benefit the sites, Berkeley, San Francisco, the lasting memory of Allen Ginsberg, and the Beats. So, the goal of the Berkeley Beat History Project is to bring visitors and local residents into some of the more unknown parts of Berkeley and San Francisco. This includes educating not only locals, but national and international tourists as well.
However, there are some challenges in attempting to preserve the intangible heritage of the Beat Movement. The first is rising sea levels from global climate change which could potentially damage or destroy the sites. Another is additional construction. The fear is that anything we place on the sites could be demolished or become no longer relevant. We also need to keep in mind how exactly to present the information about Allen Ginsberg, the Beat poets, and their legacy to children. Since they wrote about controversial topics such as drug use, materialism, and sex, care must be taken when conversing about such subjects with younger audiences. But despite these challenges, the outlook for preserving Beat Generation heritage is promising since his poems are easily accessible through printed books and online websites. Another reason is because we hope to preserve Beat heritage by implementing a series of interpretive projects that involve students, educators, business owners, artists, tourists, and the local community. This consists of an audio tour app, a crowd sourcing app, poetry showcases, and physical installation of the poetry at the sites. For those who wish to visit, all are easily accessible and offer street or garage parking. The Ashby Bart Bike Station is also within walking distance to all three Berkeley sites.
Read about our Audio Tour App
[1] Skeryl, Jennie. “Individual Resistance and Collective Action in the Beat Counterculture.” Reconstructing the Beats. N.p.:Google Books. Palgrave Macmillian Publishers, n.d. 41-43. Print.
[2] Raskin, Jonah. “American Scream:Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation.” Google Books. University of California Press, n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.
Berkeley Beats Poetry: Audio Tour App – Interpretive Plan
We envision an iPhone (and/or Android) application that presents an audio tour encompassing the three main Beat Poetry heritage sites in Berkeley: Allen Ginsberg’s House, Sconehenge Café, and Trader Joe’s. The three sites, all within three miles of each other, would be incorporated into one two-hour walking tour, in which a visitor would listen to an audio narration while walking to each of the sites. The app would be modeled after the layout and function of the app “DeTour” (shown here), which provides pictures at each location, a GPS component to guide visitors, and an audio narration.
The app would first navigate tourists to Allen Ginsberg’s Berkeley residence (1624 Milvia Street), which is now an apartment complex, and begin with a reading of Ginsberg’s “A Strange New Cottage In Berkeley.” The visitor’s iPhone would display pictures of Ginsberg’s house. The applications’ navigation and narration would then direct visitors to the Trader Joe’s. During this walk from Milvia Street to University Avenue, the narration would provide a short biography of Allen Ginsberg and briefly explain the Berkeley Beat Generation. This explanation would touch on many important themes pertaining to the Berkeley Beat Movement – activism, free speech, anti-censorship, and personal expression. There would be audio clips from Ginsberg, such as one of him on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” in 1994 (this audio clip can be heard here), in which Ginsberg reflects on his role in the Beat Generation and fighting censorship.
When the visitor arrives at Trader Joe’s the narration would play a recording of Ginsberg reading his poem “A Supermarket in California” (this audio clip can be heard here), and visitors would be invited to compare the sights and sounds of the supermarket to the description in Ginsberg’s poem. The phone would provide pictures of the original U-Save Market, which stood in the place of Trader Joe’s during Ginsberg’s time in Berkeley.
Next, the narration would lead visitors to Sconehenge Café, and explain that this was the site of Ginsberg’s first recorded reading of “Howl.” On the walk to the café, there would be a discussion about the role of performance in beat poetry. The narration would introduce the slam poetry showcases that the Cafe hosts and invite users to attend or perform at the showcase. There would be an audio clip of Ron Loewinsohn, a professor of American Literature at UC Berkeley, providing an analysis of the literature of the Beat Generation (this audio clip can be heard here). Upon arriving at the Café, the app would discuss the lasting impacts of the Berkeley Beat Generation on American culture and poetry. The audio tour would close with a recording of Ginsberg reading “Howl.”
It is our hope that the tour would provide an interesting juxtaposition between the current state of the heritage sites and these same locations in the 1950’s . We expect that this audio-based tour would be used long-term, as there are few plans for the sites to change aesthetic or location. This app would attract tourists, local visitors, and community members who wish to learn more about the Berkeley Beat Movement through this audio tour.
Read about our Crowd Sourcing App
Berkeley Beats Poetry: Crowd Sourcing App – Interpretive Plan
This interpretive project is an iPhone/Android web-based application that allows visitors to collect text, audio, and pictures and post them to the shared forum. Conceptually it is a crowd-sourced model for collecting text, audio, and images generated by users at the physical locations. The content is user-moderated and will be accessible via application or web. An important aspect of this interpretive project is the multiple media incorporated into the app; ideally, being at a certain location would trigger the app to prompt the user to view previous users’ posts. Signage and push-notifications will prompt the user to contribute to the web-forum through picture or video capture, text posts, or audio recordings.
An example of the potential layout of this app.
The themes of our project include living history, expression and performance, and free speech and anti-censorship movements; the concept of this app as a public forum for expression and digital performance (through video, photos, audio, and text) allows people to share their experiences in a less traditional manner across time. The ability of users to scroll through time on the app to view the content provided for their location allows them to occupy multiple times in history. The app also allows users to view historic photos, videos, audio clips, and text specific to the location, as well as add their own photos, etc., to the app’s “archive”. In addition to this, the app allows anyone with a smart phone or web access to view, contribute, and provide feedback on the content available. One of the primary audiences is teenagers and young adults, who nearly all own or have access to a smart phone or the web and generally enjoy using social media and crowd sourcing apps. However, due to the nature of the app’s attention to expression and performance, the content and contribution aspects are accessible and inviting to people of all ages. Stakeholders, including poets, writers, local artists, and aspiring artists will all find content of interest to them, in addition to having the ability to contribute their own thoughts and artistic material.
This interpretive project encourages users to document real-life performances, which engage all of their senses and synthesize these into user-friendly content. One of the main motivators of the project is cultivating multisensorial engagement with a place and its history. The digital nature of this archive-database makes it sustainable for long-term engagement between stakeholders and visitors. However, digital apps require consistent and long-term updating, de-bugging, and maintenance, which requires funding or volunteer dedication. The Estate of Allen Ginsberg is well prepared and able to maintain an app with these kinds of requirements.
Read about our Slam Poetry Showcase
Berkeley Beats Poetry: Slam Poetry Showcase – Interpretive Plan
For this interpretive project, our group thought it would be interesting to highlight the Beat History of Berkeley through a series of monthly (or semi-monthly, if the turnout is high and response is positive) poetry slam/creativity open-mic night showcases. This would initially take place at a single heritage location— the California College of the Arts, and then perhaps expand to set up another showcase at the Sconehenge Café. The poetry slam would be free of charge, although it could be possible to accept donations that could then be donated to a local school or organization supporting a good cause. The initial and focal intention is for this to be a poetry slam, but as a showcase as well, all forms of creative stage performance will of course be accepted. Participants, the performers, may also sing or play an instrument, do a stand-up comedy routine, perform a short skit or dance routine, etc. Local artists can also have the opportunity to have their art work (sculpture, painting, photography, etc.) put on display at the intended location of the showcase. Not only would people be able to learn about their own city’s local history, but this also creates an opportunity for them to share their own narratives with each other.
With the introduction of this poetry slam showcase, it could be a way to bring in a good source of people—local people to San Francisco and the surrounding areas, college, primary and high school students, and those within the arts community. This would be good publicity for the California College of the Arts and for the local area, and be a good way to get more people interested in their community and its history. If these poetry slams were to start occurring at the Stonehenge Café, it would also mean an influx of business (foot traffic and more people attending for the event meaning more customers), for the owners as well.
The concept of performance has the power to have a very moving and even spiritual effect on a person, whether they’re a witness to the performance or the performer themselves. Audience members (as well as the performers) will be able to evoke the past through experiencing (or being the one who incites the experience upon others) auditory and visual stimulation that can create a sense of comfort, discomfort, privacy, suppression or overload of the senses and emotions, and healing and meditation.
It would also be possible, to help better situate these open mic nights and to keep their contextualization, to have a theme for each night of the showcase that relates to something the Berkeley Beat poets stood for. The performers would be able to take these themed nights and incorporate their own emotions, memories, personal backgrounds, thoughts, and opinions and have a safe and supportive environment to express themselves. Due to the unique human-to-human interface of this interpretive project, in a way unlike any other, this project has the potential to be a valuable experience and exchange of teaching and learning for everyone.
Read about our Installation of Text into the Sites
Interpretive Plan: Albany Bulb Exchange Game
This proposed interpretive project aims at getting visitors engaged by sharing stories and connecting people through the landscape and exchange of meaningful objects. The game would be similar to geocaching, where visitors to the Albany Bulb use smart phones or GPS enabled devices to find hidden caches of items. Normally, people who geocache take an item from the geocache and replace it with a different item. The Albany Bulb exchange game would also require visitors to complete certain tasks or share stories as part of an app in order to access the items inside the geocache. Although various interpretive projects involving stories already exist at the Bulb, this project would build upon these plans because it would require participants to experience the place and formulate alternate narratives in addition to contributing stories.
Ocean and Art by Karlene Shippelhoute
Each box would be locked with a code, and the participant of the geocaching game would need to complete a task on an app in order to receive the code to open the cache. The stories and responses from other visitors would be viewable on the website, and participants in the game can contribute to any or all of the deposits. Participants would be informed of liability concerns pertinent to the Albany Bulb before they are permitted to participate.
The game would be able to be played individually or as a group, provided at least one person has a GPS-enabled device. The targeted audience includes both regular visitors and people who are new to the Albany Bulb. Here are some examples of tasks which a participant might be asked to complete:
- Cache 1: Share a favorite memory of the Albany Bulb and post it to the website.
- Cache 2: Post a picture of their favorite tree or plant at the Albany Bulb.
- Cache 3: Describe how the Albany Bulb smells.
- Cache 4: Share a story about the object they plan to deposit in the cache, and why it is meaningful and related to the Albany Bulb.
- Cache 5: Participants given a story about the history of the Albany Bulb so far, and asked to write an alternate ending.
- Cache 6: Participants given a description of the Albany Bulb and asked to write an alternate beginning or history of the place.
- Cache 7: Add on to a story contributed by the last visitor.
This interpretive project plan incorporates multiple project themes: landscape, alternative narratives, nature versus human dichotomy, art, communities. The game would contribute towards sustainability because it would facilitate discussion about the past and future of the site in light of the relationship between humans, the environment and waste disposal.
Who Owns the Past? Cultural Heritage in the Digital Age 
